Twitter is apparently able to hunt down and exterminate wrongthink with a single algorithm. Its censorship resolutely sniffs out conservative tendencies like a bloodhound on the scent. If they can’t outright ban everyone to the right of Marx using their byzantine “community standards”, Twitter will “shadowban” them – making sure no one actually sees them.
Yet, for all its censorious might, Twitter is apparently helpless to stop sexual predators from weaponising their platform.
Twitter, one of the most popular social media sites in the world with over 330 million users, has had a hand in the sexual exploitation of countless victims of abuse, coercion, and objectification on their platform.
Dawn Hawkins, the Senior Vice President and Executive Director of NCOSE, attests that,
“We have reliable information and evidence that Twitter consistently has over 100,000 child sexual abuse images on its platform at any given time, while pretending to guard against it.”
It should be noted, of course, that the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) are a bunch of all-round anti-porn wowsers. Its “exposing the links between all forms of sexual exploitation” mission statement apparently fails to distinguish between perfectly legal adult material and genuine sexual predation and vile criminality.
That said, some of its evidence against Twitter is damning.
Just last week, NCOSE’s Law Centre, along with several other law firms, filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of a teenage boy identified as ‘John Doe’. Hawkins explains:
Instead of removing exploitative videos of John Doe, Twitter did nothing, eventually reporting back to the family that the video in question did not in fact violate any of their policies. By refusing to act and take down the child sexual abuse material featuring John Doe, even when informed by multiple channels, Twitter enabled the sexual abuse of a minor and profited off this abuse.
The New York Post reported on the story last week, explaining that when he was 13, John Doe was tricked by a sex trafficker posing as a 16-year-old female schoolmate soliciting nude photos. Once he’d sent them through, the trafficker began blackmailing Doe, threatening to share the photos with the boy’s parents, coach and pastor if he didn’t send more explicit videos of himself performing sex acts with a friend. Under duress, Doe obliged.
The resultant videos surfaced online years later, in early 2020. On becoming aware of them, Doe and his parents made police reports and filed a complaint with Twitter.
This would seem to be a pretty clear violation of, not just basic decency and criminality, but even Twitter’s own policies. For instance, Twitter clearly states that “You may not post or share intimate photos or videos of someone that were produced or distributed without their consent[…including] images or videos that are taken in an intimate setting and not intended for public distribution”.
Furthermore, “Twitter has zero tolerance towards any material that features or promotes child sexual exploitation, one of the most serious violations of the Twitter Rules”.
Except when apparently it is just fine.
“Thanks for reaching out,” Twitter’s reply read. “We’ve reviewed the content, and didn’t find a violation of our policies, so no action will be taken at this time.” This, despite the video receiving over 167,000 views and clearly depicting child pornography. John Doe replied to Twitter, writing,
What do you mean you don’t see a problem? We both are minors right now and were minors at the time these videos were taken. We both were 13 years of age. We were baited, harassed, and threatened to take these videos that are now being posted without our permission. We did not authorize these videos AT ALL and they need to be taken down.
Twitter only removed the videos once an agent from the Department of Homeland Security used their federal powers to force the platform’s surrender.
The Good Sauce
Twitter’s conduct here is absolutely inexcusable. It’s bad enough that the site openly hosts the likes of “MAPs” (so-called “virtuous pedophiles”), which clearly violate its ban on “promoting or normalizing sexual attraction to minors as a form of identity or sexual orientation”.
This doesn’t mean that all adult material should be purged from Twitter. Providing legal adult material is posted as “sensitive”, hiding it from general gaze unless specific user settings are changed, there should be no problem. As journalist Jim Goad says, “Don’t be like the Amish; the Amish are no fun”.
But there is no justification for Twitter not taking even half as zealous a stand against clearly illegal exploitation as it does against a former president and his supporters.
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